Poor Ivy League Students
April 22, 2015 6:41 PM Subscribe
No, this is not a snarky article about privileged kids at Harvard. It's a serious article about 1st generation college students from lower income backgrounds at prestigious schools, that are outstanding academic students on full ride scholarships, yet struggling to fit in on a campus where the vast majority of their fellow students come from privileged backgrounds.
I had a hard enough time as a poor kid at a big state school trying to keep up with the middle class kids. I would have never survived in an ivy league school.
posted by octothorpe at 7:13 PM on April 22, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 7:13 PM on April 22, 2015 [5 favorites]
Mod note: A few comments deleted. Let's start this off on a better foot.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 7:15 PM on April 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 7:15 PM on April 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
It's not the education or the degree that makes Ivy League schools appealing--you can get a fabulous education and a piece of paper at loads of schools across the country and world--it's the networking. But for those of lower socioeconomic status, having the same social mores, expendable income, etc. makes networking with peers basically impossible (as the article stated). Maybe there are a few wealthy kids looking for their token poor friend :/ but I would think the majority of the students there don't give a flip about folks not in their social circles. It's good the schools are looking to mentors and professors to network with the students, because I think that'll be their only hopes of getting out of Harvard something they can't get out of just about any other 4-year school. My heart goes out to the students feeling lonely and stressing about the funds they need that aren't included in their aid package. I've been there and it's not fun. It's always interesting to watch "integration" models that begin with "just toss the Others in with the Haves, it'll be fine!" begin to flounder and wonder where they went wrong. Blinders, galore.
posted by weeyin at 7:17 PM on April 22, 2015 [16 favorites]
posted by weeyin at 7:17 PM on April 22, 2015 [16 favorites]
Maybe there are a few wealthy kids looking for their token poor friend :/ but I would think the majority of the students there don't give a flip about folks not in their social circles.
Eh, you might be surprised. There are the serious Haves, of course, at prestigious schools, and sometimes they keep to themselves. But the majority of students are just Sorta-Haves, and most of them are looking to meet and hang out with all kinds of people.
posted by gurple at 7:29 PM on April 22, 2015 [9 favorites]
Eh, you might be surprised. There are the serious Haves, of course, at prestigious schools, and sometimes they keep to themselves. But the majority of students are just Sorta-Haves, and most of them are looking to meet and hang out with all kinds of people.
posted by gurple at 7:29 PM on April 22, 2015 [9 favorites]
I resemble this article: I was the first person in my immediate family to graduate from high school, much less go to college, and I went to the University of Chicago (not an Ivy, but consistently ranked in the top ten universities). I was poor and there was a (very) brief time when I was in college where when I went home for Christmas I had no home to go to. I ended up crashing with friends for the entire holiday.
For all that I integrated pretty well. One reason for that was that I had gone to a private boarding school (scholarship kid), where I dealt with most of the acclimation that these kids are undergoing for the first time in college. By the time got to college I knew how to pass. The other reason was that I immediately got a column in the school newspaper, so fairly quickly most of the school knew who I was. (Positive) notability is a useful thing for assimilating.
And I agree with the comment above that the advantage of an elite school is not the education (although it can be fantastic) but the network. People I went to college with have won Pulitzers, Tonys, been spokespeople for presidential candidates and are running film studios. Plus people are simply impressed with the pedigree; I know that one reason I got my first job out of college was that my future boss was impressed I got a degree in philosophy from the U of C, and that (briefly) my thesis adviser was Saul Bellow. I was poor going into the U of C; I haven't been poor since leaving it.
posted by jscalzi at 7:43 PM on April 22, 2015 [41 favorites]
For all that I integrated pretty well. One reason for that was that I had gone to a private boarding school (scholarship kid), where I dealt with most of the acclimation that these kids are undergoing for the first time in college. By the time got to college I knew how to pass. The other reason was that I immediately got a column in the school newspaper, so fairly quickly most of the school knew who I was. (Positive) notability is a useful thing for assimilating.
And I agree with the comment above that the advantage of an elite school is not the education (although it can be fantastic) but the network. People I went to college with have won Pulitzers, Tonys, been spokespeople for presidential candidates and are running film studios. Plus people are simply impressed with the pedigree; I know that one reason I got my first job out of college was that my future boss was impressed I got a degree in philosophy from the U of C, and that (briefly) my thesis adviser was Saul Bellow. I was poor going into the U of C; I haven't been poor since leaving it.
posted by jscalzi at 7:43 PM on April 22, 2015 [41 favorites]
In a similar vein: When Minority Students Attend Elite Private Schools (The Atlantic)
Admitted, but Left Out (NYT)
I didn't understand what socioeconomic class really meant until I went to college. I met classmates who had entirely different relationships to material items than I did. One of my hobbies in my freshman year entailed learning the names of designers from the clothing/shoes/bags that my roommate had, googling the names, and getting a kick out of how many semesters of textbooks that single pair of Manolos could pay for (and she had an entire closetful).
But really, going to college helped me understand that the rich and the poor and the people in-between have their own language, media, aesthetic, sense of self, definitions of success. It wasn't only about the amount of money people had. It was about the space they were comfortable with occupying and their expectations for themselves and the ability to envision a way to get themselves there.
Oh boo hoo. The world is unjust. If college teaches anything, it should be how to deal with it.
And those schools mentioned in the article are trying (or at least trying to look like they are trying). But as that article already described, going to an Ivy from a lower-class background is like visiting a different planet.
posted by gemutlichkeit at 7:47 PM on April 22, 2015 [25 favorites]
Admitted, but Left Out (NYT)
I didn't understand what socioeconomic class really meant until I went to college. I met classmates who had entirely different relationships to material items than I did. One of my hobbies in my freshman year entailed learning the names of designers from the clothing/shoes/bags that my roommate had, googling the names, and getting a kick out of how many semesters of textbooks that single pair of Manolos could pay for (and she had an entire closetful).
But really, going to college helped me understand that the rich and the poor and the people in-between have their own language, media, aesthetic, sense of self, definitions of success. It wasn't only about the amount of money people had. It was about the space they were comfortable with occupying and their expectations for themselves and the ability to envision a way to get themselves there.
Oh boo hoo. The world is unjust. If college teaches anything, it should be how to deal with it.
And those schools mentioned in the article are trying (or at least trying to look like they are trying). But as that article already described, going to an Ivy from a lower-class background is like visiting a different planet.
posted by gemutlichkeit at 7:47 PM on April 22, 2015 [25 favorites]
I didn't understand what socioeconomic class really meant until I went to college.
That makes two of us. I guess there were probably some slightly wealthy people in the places I had lived before, but nothing like the casual wealth I encountered in college (and even more in graduate school). And I wasn't poor, just lower middle class. It was a lot harder for friends who were poor, or first generation.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:51 PM on April 22, 2015 [5 favorites]
That makes two of us. I guess there were probably some slightly wealthy people in the places I had lived before, but nothing like the casual wealth I encountered in college (and even more in graduate school). And I wasn't poor, just lower middle class. It was a lot harder for friends who were poor, or first generation.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:51 PM on April 22, 2015 [5 favorites]
The NYTimes ran a wonderful story a few weeks ago on first-gen college students building up support networks within and across universities.
posted by mostly vowels at 8:07 PM on April 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by mostly vowels at 8:07 PM on April 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
I was a first generation college student at an Ivy in the late eighties/early nineties, before they had their "if you make less than $40K we will give you a full ride" policy, and I identified with a lot of what was in this article. (It also ironically made me a little mad at my school for not adopting those policies in time for me, because my college loans were significant.) I was white, and my family was not DIRT poor -- my dad had put 3 kids through the local private school on a mix of a boiler inspector's salary, our scholarships, couponing and general stinginess, and sheer strength of will -- and as jscalzi noted when you've gone to school with people much richer than you before you learn how to pass.
But the kids around me were an education at least as astonishing as my classes were. People with parents who could talk about books and their careers and important people they knew. People who went on trips over break that were not to visit their families, but to some other part of the country or world, often done casually, with other students! People with rich relatives who came for a visit and took them out to lunch and shopping. People with parents or even grandparents who had gone to our Ivy. People during senior year talking about going on to law or business school instead of getting out and getting a job and paying off their debt, that was unthinkable to me!
For a long time I was ashamed of my background and felt like I didn't belong at my school. Here were all these people who were much more well spoken than me and seemed to fit in and had no reservations about raising their hands in class, and here I was wearing weird discount clothes with bad hair and acne and an imposter complex and a dad who had roped weird, old secondhand furniture to the roof of his car so we could furnish our room. I did not seem to know what the fuck I was doing. I was so fortunate to have a few good roommates who didn't judge me and are my best friends to this day.
But now when I look back I realize how proud I should have been of where I came from. It made things harder for me and I could have been proud of that. I mean, don't get me wrong, others had it much harder than me, but I identified with a lot of details in the article. Most of all, though, I should have felt lucky to have come from where I did because realistically THAT was probably a major factor in getting into the school in the first place.
Gosh I wish they had had some of these support networks around back when I was there, I might have been less awkward. At the same time, maybe it was much more common to be a first generation college student back in the late eighties/early nineties, and maybe there was less of a gap between the haves and the have nots than there is today, so maybe I actually had it pretty easy.
Dad, thank you for that weird furniture. You were the best dad at that school. I love you.
posted by onlyconnect at 8:11 PM on April 22, 2015 [46 favorites]
But the kids around me were an education at least as astonishing as my classes were. People with parents who could talk about books and their careers and important people they knew. People who went on trips over break that were not to visit their families, but to some other part of the country or world, often done casually, with other students! People with rich relatives who came for a visit and took them out to lunch and shopping. People with parents or even grandparents who had gone to our Ivy. People during senior year talking about going on to law or business school instead of getting out and getting a job and paying off their debt, that was unthinkable to me!
For a long time I was ashamed of my background and felt like I didn't belong at my school. Here were all these people who were much more well spoken than me and seemed to fit in and had no reservations about raising their hands in class, and here I was wearing weird discount clothes with bad hair and acne and an imposter complex and a dad who had roped weird, old secondhand furniture to the roof of his car so we could furnish our room. I did not seem to know what the fuck I was doing. I was so fortunate to have a few good roommates who didn't judge me and are my best friends to this day.
But now when I look back I realize how proud I should have been of where I came from. It made things harder for me and I could have been proud of that. I mean, don't get me wrong, others had it much harder than me, but I identified with a lot of details in the article. Most of all, though, I should have felt lucky to have come from where I did because realistically THAT was probably a major factor in getting into the school in the first place.
Gosh I wish they had had some of these support networks around back when I was there, I might have been less awkward. At the same time, maybe it was much more common to be a first generation college student back in the late eighties/early nineties, and maybe there was less of a gap between the haves and the have nots than there is today, so maybe I actually had it pretty easy.
Dad, thank you for that weird furniture. You were the best dad at that school. I love you.
posted by onlyconnect at 8:11 PM on April 22, 2015 [46 favorites]
I depended on professors putting the course materials on reserve at the library because all my parents could afford was a monthly partial tuition payment, and my work-study job only covered food and incidentals. One semester a professor, in response to my question about why the books weren't on reserve, told me that if I "took the course seriously" that I would buy the books like everyone else. It's not just the other students who didn't get it. The faculty and staff at my fancy small liberal arts college didn't get it either. I sometimes needed friends to swipe me into the freshman dining hall, where portions were unlimited, to get enough calories in a day. This was shit that most of my peers never had to think about. Never mind having to work paying jobs every summer because I needed the money to pay for the coming year, while my friends could afford to take unpaid internships.
posted by 1adam12 at 8:22 PM on April 22, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by 1adam12 at 8:22 PM on April 22, 2015 [7 favorites]
The pertinent essay is Bourdieu's Forms of Capital. University provides you with cultural and social capital that can be used or converted to economic capital. It is a loop that feeds and perpetuates itself from one generation to another. Your family privilege allows you to have competitive advantage in those three types of capital and confer those privileges to your children. A quick wiki entry on cultural capital. It gives a nice spin on the whole legacy admission concept.
I was a first generation college student. It was interesting. I look back and realize that my total lack of knowledge regarding how universities function, in particular, their bureaucracy hampered my choices because my parents could not confer on me the knowledge to navigate a very foreign world. I was too goofy to need to pass culturally, much. When you are that weird things get glossed over.
posted by jadepearl at 8:43 PM on April 22, 2015 [10 favorites]
I was a first generation college student. It was interesting. I look back and realize that my total lack of knowledge regarding how universities function, in particular, their bureaucracy hampered my choices because my parents could not confer on me the knowledge to navigate a very foreign world. I was too goofy to need to pass culturally, much. When you are that weird things get glossed over.
posted by jadepearl at 8:43 PM on April 22, 2015 [10 favorites]
I was a first generation kid at a Seven Sisters school. (This was a long time ago and even though I had a partial scholarship through National Merit, I wish these policies had been around back then. I'm really lucky I had family willing to go into debt for me.)
My first two years were really really difficult. Mostly because it was almost instantly visible that my public high school had not in any way prepared me for what I faced in college-- and I was mostly in classes with people who went either to private high schools or very well funded public high schools. I was like the red queen-- I had to run as fast as I could just to keep up. I spent a lot of nights weeping because I lacked so many basic skills.
I also had the not-so-nice Alice In Wonderland experience of realizing how wealthy people could really be-- growing up, my idea of rich was if you could afford a new car. And you were very very rich if you could afford two new cars. My daydreams of being rich mostly circled around being able to buy clothes at Barbara Moss which were not on sale. It's dislocating to suddenly find yourself in a world where people jetted off to Aspen for a few days skiing on fall break, or ate at restaurants which might cost more in one night than my mother paid for groceries for a month. I remember the first time I saw a painter I recognized hanging on the walls of a friend's house.
I honestly don't think the other students held any of this against me. I was prickly about it, and awkward, which didn't make me exactly popular. Most slights were accidental "Oh frumiousb, I hear you aren't joining us in London over spring break. Not in the mood? Where are you going?" (answer: Buffalo)
Today I am really glad I didn't transfer out. Over the many intervening years, it has been a wonderful investment. The network has been very useful on many levels. But I still remember the misery acutely. I'm honestly not sure if I would have joined a first generation association. On the one hand, it would have been nice to meet others like me. On the other, I was mostly preoccupied with trying to fit in-- I am not sure I would have welcomed a badge of difference then.
posted by frumiousb at 8:55 PM on April 22, 2015 [4 favorites]
My first two years were really really difficult. Mostly because it was almost instantly visible that my public high school had not in any way prepared me for what I faced in college-- and I was mostly in classes with people who went either to private high schools or very well funded public high schools. I was like the red queen-- I had to run as fast as I could just to keep up. I spent a lot of nights weeping because I lacked so many basic skills.
I also had the not-so-nice Alice In Wonderland experience of realizing how wealthy people could really be-- growing up, my idea of rich was if you could afford a new car. And you were very very rich if you could afford two new cars. My daydreams of being rich mostly circled around being able to buy clothes at Barbara Moss which were not on sale. It's dislocating to suddenly find yourself in a world where people jetted off to Aspen for a few days skiing on fall break, or ate at restaurants which might cost more in one night than my mother paid for groceries for a month. I remember the first time I saw a painter I recognized hanging on the walls of a friend's house.
I honestly don't think the other students held any of this against me. I was prickly about it, and awkward, which didn't make me exactly popular. Most slights were accidental "Oh frumiousb, I hear you aren't joining us in London over spring break. Not in the mood? Where are you going?" (answer: Buffalo)
Today I am really glad I didn't transfer out. Over the many intervening years, it has been a wonderful investment. The network has been very useful on many levels. But I still remember the misery acutely. I'm honestly not sure if I would have joined a first generation association. On the one hand, it would have been nice to meet others like me. On the other, I was mostly preoccupied with trying to fit in-- I am not sure I would have welcomed a badge of difference then.
posted by frumiousb at 8:55 PM on April 22, 2015 [4 favorites]
Disadvantaged students are accustomed to doing everything on their own because they rarely have parents educated enough to help them with things like homework or college applications, so they may be less likely to go to a writing center or ask a professor for extra help. Yolanda Rome, assistant dean for first-year and sophomore students at Brown, says many disadvantaged students have come to her in tears after getting a C on a paper. When she asks if they met with the instructor, the answer is typically no. “We’re working hard to change the campus culture,” she says, “so these students know that asking for help is not a weakness.” (emphasis mine)
I didn't go to an Ivy, but was first from my family to go to university, and in the well-off high school I did go to, I was doing well in my classes with little help. However, I had worked for most of my adolescence also, and had been dealing with a lot of other severe issues in my family of origin.
If it had been possible, I probably should've taken a year off away from where I grew up, then continued my schooling. But there's no 'gap year' for the poor! As it was, I nearly failed freshman year from all the stress of the transition, having UMC dorm-mates that I couldn't keep up with, taking on too heavy a credit load, having to work 4-5 hours a day 4 days a week, and still having to deal with various issues from home on top of it all. I had no idea about advisers or therapists to see, and there was no one in those late '80s days at my uni who knew how to work with 1st gens like myself. I thought that if I couldn't do it, well, fuck me, then, so I kept pushing myself, but it took way too much out of me to go it alone.
I'm so glad that young people in this situation today are both coming together to help themselves and each other, and are getting the attention of the schools to help them navigate through these minefields.
posted by droplet at 9:02 PM on April 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
I didn't go to an Ivy, but was first from my family to go to university, and in the well-off high school I did go to, I was doing well in my classes with little help. However, I had worked for most of my adolescence also, and had been dealing with a lot of other severe issues in my family of origin.
If it had been possible, I probably should've taken a year off away from where I grew up, then continued my schooling. But there's no 'gap year' for the poor! As it was, I nearly failed freshman year from all the stress of the transition, having UMC dorm-mates that I couldn't keep up with, taking on too heavy a credit load, having to work 4-5 hours a day 4 days a week, and still having to deal with various issues from home on top of it all. I had no idea about advisers or therapists to see, and there was no one in those late '80s days at my uni who knew how to work with 1st gens like myself. I thought that if I couldn't do it, well, fuck me, then, so I kept pushing myself, but it took way too much out of me to go it alone.
I'm so glad that young people in this situation today are both coming together to help themselves and each other, and are getting the attention of the schools to help them navigate through these minefields.
posted by droplet at 9:02 PM on April 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
I went to an Ivy froma very small western town. The Old Money prep-school legacy kids were fine. the upper middle class strivers from huge suburban public schools that were unbearable. My parents never noticed homework, and certainly people who'd been to prep school didn't have constant supervision or encouragement.
Too many kids graduate from lousy public schools with straight As with no real idea how to study.
posted by Ideefixe at 9:16 PM on April 22, 2015 [6 favorites]
Too many kids graduate from lousy public schools with straight As with no real idea how to study.
posted by Ideefixe at 9:16 PM on April 22, 2015 [6 favorites]
I think it can be easy to underestimate the cultural shock (and the variance in cultural capital) involved in these sorts of situations; rationally we understand that elite universities must be like X, and that if you're sort of person Y it will be hard, but the scale of that shock is hard to convey to people who neither attend one, nor have life experiences like person Y.
I found this when I became a staff member at a super-elite UK university - and I was not a first generation (my mum had a degree), and not poor (first generation lower middle class). Even knowing people who'd attended this super-elite university, even being relatively politically active and aware of social disadvantage, did not even nearly prepare me for the astonishing privilege, and extraordinary privilege-blindness within the institution. I struggled with it: as a middle class staff member, and I could not imagine what it must be like to cope with the culture clash as a working class 18 year old student.
There is some sociological evidence to suggest that partly disadvantaged students cope with it by absorbing the local culture (for e.g. this paper); instead of rebelling against the status quo, they accept it and embrace it. In some cases (better argued in another paper which I can't find now, but will edit in if I can locate it online) they actually end up distancing themselves from their roots in a 'I'm not like my class mates, I made it because I'm worth it (implied: they are not worth it)' narrative. Which is tragic, and I think stops the sorts of mutually supportive grass-roots organisations described in the article.
But, for goodness sake, WTH is this sentence: A petite 5-foot-2 with high cheekbones and a head of model-worthy hair?! In the first paragraph no less? There's no discussion of how cute or tall or hirstute the male students are, so why the HELL is this in the opening section? It made me so cross with the article I nearly clicked away right then. I just.... argh it's so infuriating I can barely express it, and I shan't share this piece because ARGH SEXISM.
posted by AFII at 9:21 PM on April 22, 2015 [19 favorites]
I found this when I became a staff member at a super-elite UK university - and I was not a first generation (my mum had a degree), and not poor (first generation lower middle class). Even knowing people who'd attended this super-elite university, even being relatively politically active and aware of social disadvantage, did not even nearly prepare me for the astonishing privilege, and extraordinary privilege-blindness within the institution. I struggled with it: as a middle class staff member, and I could not imagine what it must be like to cope with the culture clash as a working class 18 year old student.
There is some sociological evidence to suggest that partly disadvantaged students cope with it by absorbing the local culture (for e.g. this paper); instead of rebelling against the status quo, they accept it and embrace it. In some cases (better argued in another paper which I can't find now, but will edit in if I can locate it online) they actually end up distancing themselves from their roots in a 'I'm not like my class mates, I made it because I'm worth it (implied: they are not worth it)' narrative. Which is tragic, and I think stops the sorts of mutually supportive grass-roots organisations described in the article.
But, for goodness sake, WTH is this sentence: A petite 5-foot-2 with high cheekbones and a head of model-worthy hair?! In the first paragraph no less? There's no discussion of how cute or tall or hirstute the male students are, so why the HELL is this in the opening section? It made me so cross with the article I nearly clicked away right then. I just.... argh it's so infuriating I can barely express it, and I shan't share this piece because ARGH SEXISM.
posted by AFII at 9:21 PM on April 22, 2015 [19 favorites]
I sometimes wonder if the only purpose of Ivy League schools is so that journalists have just a short list of places to go to study trends among colleges and college students.
posted by miyabo at 9:27 PM on April 22, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by miyabo at 9:27 PM on April 22, 2015 [4 favorites]
There is some sociological evidence to suggest that partly disadvantaged students cope with it by absorbing the local culture (for e.g. this paper); instead of rebelling against the status quo, they accept it and embrace it.
well, why else would they be going to univiersity? you can't try to climb the ladder without accepting the ladder to some extent... students who think they are rebelling in university aren't, if you actually rebel you're not at university in the first place.
there's this thick layer of "horatio alger" moralism applied here. poor kids striving at an elite school are assumed to be noble. middle class kids striving at an elite school are somewhat distasteful and rich kids are, by default, degenerate but not necessarily distasteful since this is their natural environment.
posted by ennui.bz at 12:33 AM on April 23, 2015 [2 favorites]
well, why else would they be going to univiersity? you can't try to climb the ladder without accepting the ladder to some extent... students who think they are rebelling in university aren't, if you actually rebel you're not at university in the first place.
there's this thick layer of "horatio alger" moralism applied here. poor kids striving at an elite school are assumed to be noble. middle class kids striving at an elite school are somewhat distasteful and rich kids are, by default, degenerate but not necessarily distasteful since this is their natural environment.
“Frankly, the longer I’m here, the less that I feel I identify with having a low-income background.”exactly the point.
posted by ennui.bz at 12:33 AM on April 23, 2015 [2 favorites]
This reminds me of the excellent essay from the 1980's by bell hooks, "keeping close to home: class and education."
posted by désoeuvrée at 1:38 AM on April 23, 2015
posted by désoeuvrée at 1:38 AM on April 23, 2015
There is some sociological evidence to suggest that partly disadvantaged students cope with it by absorbing the local culture (for e.g. this paper);
Heh. They conceal the name of the university and then quote the students mentioning "supervisions". We have seen through your cunning ruse, paper authors.
One thing about "Southern" is that it's collegiate and your college makes a difference to your environment. There were a lot more of us from state schools (note: if you're reading UK sources, a "public school" is an elite private school) at Churchill than I seemed to encounter from the older colleges.
At one point, we punted along the river and pretended to be posh. I think assumed the name "Tarquin" for the occasion. So, yeah, some awareness that we didn't match the stereotype, but I don't recall feeling unwelcome.
It's interesting to compare my experiences to the paper: I definitely had the crisis of confidence in the first term and the bubble feeling, mainly of coming home after the intense terms and catching up on the world news. I now think of myself as middle class, but I was the first generation to go to university. My Dad was from a Yorkshire mining village (where his Dad was the local copper) and read the Mirror, but took a chemistry qualification on day release from the Coal Board's lab and then trained as an air-traffic controller around the time I was born, so the family was actually on a middle class income by the time I went to university. As I say in the blog post, I credit an excellent state school I went to for sixth form (where you study for your NEWTS, American Harry Potter fans) for making me realise I was capable of Cambridge.
posted by pw201 at 3:52 AM on April 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
Heh. They conceal the name of the university and then quote the students mentioning "supervisions". We have seen through your cunning ruse, paper authors.
One thing about "Southern" is that it's collegiate and your college makes a difference to your environment. There were a lot more of us from state schools (note: if you're reading UK sources, a "public school" is an elite private school) at Churchill than I seemed to encounter from the older colleges.
At one point, we punted along the river and pretended to be posh. I think assumed the name "Tarquin" for the occasion. So, yeah, some awareness that we didn't match the stereotype, but I don't recall feeling unwelcome.
It's interesting to compare my experiences to the paper: I definitely had the crisis of confidence in the first term and the bubble feeling, mainly of coming home after the intense terms and catching up on the world news. I now think of myself as middle class, but I was the first generation to go to university. My Dad was from a Yorkshire mining village (where his Dad was the local copper) and read the Mirror, but took a chemistry qualification on day release from the Coal Board's lab and then trained as an air-traffic controller around the time I was born, so the family was actually on a middle class income by the time I went to university. As I say in the blog post, I credit an excellent state school I went to for sixth form (where you study for your NEWTS, American Harry Potter fans) for making me realise I was capable of Cambridge.
posted by pw201 at 3:52 AM on April 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
There are the serious Haves, of course, at prestigious schools, and sometimes they keep to themselves. But the majority of students are just Sorta-Haves, and most of them are looking to meet and hang out with all kinds of people.
That was my experience too. I was a poor first-generation kid at Harvard. I mean my mom taught my dad to read after they were married. I arrived at Harvard with a beat-up suitcase and immediately went to the secondhand stores to buy a coat for the winter. But I didn't have many troubles at all making friends. Even many of the serious Haves are nice people and some have become lifelong friends.
This article is exaggerating to make a point of course. It makes for more compelling reading at the risk of distorting the facts somewhat.
I am not denying many students didn't fit in but often it is because they arrived with the expectation that they wouldn't fit in - like the girl mentioned at the beginning who requested a single room because she was sure she wouldn't be able to live with wealthy roommates. That was before she even arrived at college.
posted by vacapinta at 4:09 AM on April 23, 2015 [5 favorites]
That was my experience too. I was a poor first-generation kid at Harvard. I mean my mom taught my dad to read after they were married. I arrived at Harvard with a beat-up suitcase and immediately went to the secondhand stores to buy a coat for the winter. But I didn't have many troubles at all making friends. Even many of the serious Haves are nice people and some have become lifelong friends.
This article is exaggerating to make a point of course. It makes for more compelling reading at the risk of distorting the facts somewhat.
I am not denying many students didn't fit in but often it is because they arrived with the expectation that they wouldn't fit in - like the girl mentioned at the beginning who requested a single room because she was sure she wouldn't be able to live with wealthy roommates. That was before she even arrived at college.
posted by vacapinta at 4:09 AM on April 23, 2015 [5 favorites]
I have almost exactly the same background as pw201 and went to a similar "modern" college (Fitzwilliam) at Cambridge. Looking back on it now, I think the biggest things I struggled with were not knowing how to ask for help when I was struggling - that resonated from the article for sure - and not understanding how to networking. I sort of understood that it was a thing, but I had no idea how to take advantage of it.
Fitting in wasn't a big problem overall though - lots of students at the college were state school, lower middle class kids like myself. The "serious haves" were not at that college and we might as well have been at different universities for all we interacted. I definitely met some people who just couldn't get to grips with the weirdness of Cambridge culture though, and no doubt background had a part to play in that. They were able, but they just felt they didn't belong there and transferred to other universities.
posted by crocomancer at 4:57 AM on April 23, 2015
Fitting in wasn't a big problem overall though - lots of students at the college were state school, lower middle class kids like myself. The "serious haves" were not at that college and we might as well have been at different universities for all we interacted. I definitely met some people who just couldn't get to grips with the weirdness of Cambridge culture though, and no doubt background had a part to play in that. They were able, but they just felt they didn't belong there and transferred to other universities.
posted by crocomancer at 4:57 AM on April 23, 2015
I was a poor first-generation kid at Harvard
So was I. This was in the late 90s where it meant that not only did I get what was essentially a full ride (although I had to take whatever the maximum subsidized loan was, which wasn't much), but they usually wound up refunding whatever I was asked to pay each semester (no joke, it was something like $800).
I didn't run in circles with the ultra-wealthy, mostly, although if I had I do think I would have felt less at-ease, but for the most part, yeah, "fitting in" wasn't a problem (although I will admit to sometimes not buying books so I would have a little extra folding money). There is plenty of ostentatious wealth at Harvard, of course, but there are also a lot more down-to-earth rich kids.
But knowing how to navigate the system, knowing how to "go to college" was a challenge. I sort of winged it and, frankly, didn't do so well. I graduated, and got good grades, but the fact is, networking and cultivating relationships with faculty completely eluded me. Which is largely what this article is getting at, and it's an important point.
posted by uncleozzy at 5:13 AM on April 23, 2015 [7 favorites]
So was I. This was in the late 90s where it meant that not only did I get what was essentially a full ride (although I had to take whatever the maximum subsidized loan was, which wasn't much), but they usually wound up refunding whatever I was asked to pay each semester (no joke, it was something like $800).
I didn't run in circles with the ultra-wealthy, mostly, although if I had I do think I would have felt less at-ease, but for the most part, yeah, "fitting in" wasn't a problem (although I will admit to sometimes not buying books so I would have a little extra folding money). There is plenty of ostentatious wealth at Harvard, of course, but there are also a lot more down-to-earth rich kids.
But knowing how to navigate the system, knowing how to "go to college" was a challenge. I sort of winged it and, frankly, didn't do so well. I graduated, and got good grades, but the fact is, networking and cultivating relationships with faculty completely eluded me. Which is largely what this article is getting at, and it's an important point.
posted by uncleozzy at 5:13 AM on April 23, 2015 [7 favorites]
I was a poor first-generation kid at Georgetown in the early 90s. They had a special summer academic transition program for poor "urban" kids, but nothing for white trailer park kids like me. I didn't need academic support, I needed social support. All of my best friends from college were also on work-study, the ones hanging around the dorm when other students were out hitting the clubs in DC or shopping. I remember freshman year watching in awe as one of the girls on my floor sat marking pages in a J. Crew catalog with Post-It notes and realizing that she was actually going to be getting all those things.
I went to an Ivy froma very small western town. The Old Money prep-school legacy kids were fine. the upper middle class strivers from huge suburban public schools that were unbearable.
Absolutely true. One of Sam Walton's grandkids lived on my floor freshman year. Quiet guy, dressed in plaid flannels and jeans, you never would have guessed.
But knowing how to navigate the system, knowing how to "go to college" was a challenge. I sort of winged it and, frankly, didn't do so well. I graduated, and got good grades, but the fact is, networking and cultivating relationships with faculty completely eluded me.
This was me as well. I look back now on all the missed opportunities and it hurts. But the college experience leads into a broader problem for me as someone who grew up poor and now isn't - I have some pretty messed-up ideas about what is "normal" (we've had several prior discussions here about poor people "habits") and I know that they are messed-up, but I have some trouble trying to figure out how not to pass those on to my own kids, and have them appreciate what they have but still empathize with those who don't have.
posted by candyland at 6:46 AM on April 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
I went to an Ivy froma very small western town. The Old Money prep-school legacy kids were fine. the upper middle class strivers from huge suburban public schools that were unbearable.
Absolutely true. One of Sam Walton's grandkids lived on my floor freshman year. Quiet guy, dressed in plaid flannels and jeans, you never would have guessed.
But knowing how to navigate the system, knowing how to "go to college" was a challenge. I sort of winged it and, frankly, didn't do so well. I graduated, and got good grades, but the fact is, networking and cultivating relationships with faculty completely eluded me.
This was me as well. I look back now on all the missed opportunities and it hurts. But the college experience leads into a broader problem for me as someone who grew up poor and now isn't - I have some pretty messed-up ideas about what is "normal" (we've had several prior discussions here about poor people "habits") and I know that they are messed-up, but I have some trouble trying to figure out how not to pass those on to my own kids, and have them appreciate what they have but still empathize with those who don't have.
posted by candyland at 6:46 AM on April 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
I wasn't a first-gen kid at my Ivy--instead, my immediate family was one where a parent had been to college but we were poor anyhow. This:
But knowing how to navigate the system, knowing how to "go to college" was a challenge. I sort of winged it and, frankly, didn't do so well. I graduated, and got good grades, but the fact is, networking and cultivating relationships with faculty completely eluded me.
was me *completely* and also seems like it applied to the few other genuinely middle-class or lower-class students at the school. We have "good" jobs, and even "interesting" jobs, but like...our rich friends are the managing editors of major national newspapers and literary tastemakers and successful academics. Because they came to college knowing people, they knew how to come out of college knowing even better people, and they knew how to turn those connections into jobs. Oh yeah, and they could afford to work for free at internships for their first 5 years out of school. Shit, we're in our 30s and I know some folks whose parents still pay half their Manhattan or Brooklyn rent. Or who just bought them apartments outright, in cash.
I used to be bitter about it but honestly, these days I appreciate that glimpse into How Shit Works--without it, I'd just be struggling blindly with no sense of why those glitzy, glamorous jobs were somehow closed off to me. And I definitely don't know that I'd have made it into my tenuous middle-class position without my college degree to back me up, so I don't regret that either.
I still fondly recall the argument I had with a classmate during our junior or senior year, who was trying to claim that he was middle class because his family could only barely afford to keep up their second home ... in the HAMPTONS.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:27 AM on April 23, 2015 [14 favorites]
But knowing how to navigate the system, knowing how to "go to college" was a challenge. I sort of winged it and, frankly, didn't do so well. I graduated, and got good grades, but the fact is, networking and cultivating relationships with faculty completely eluded me.
was me *completely* and also seems like it applied to the few other genuinely middle-class or lower-class students at the school. We have "good" jobs, and even "interesting" jobs, but like...our rich friends are the managing editors of major national newspapers and literary tastemakers and successful academics. Because they came to college knowing people, they knew how to come out of college knowing even better people, and they knew how to turn those connections into jobs. Oh yeah, and they could afford to work for free at internships for their first 5 years out of school. Shit, we're in our 30s and I know some folks whose parents still pay half their Manhattan or Brooklyn rent. Or who just bought them apartments outright, in cash.
I used to be bitter about it but honestly, these days I appreciate that glimpse into How Shit Works--without it, I'd just be struggling blindly with no sense of why those glitzy, glamorous jobs were somehow closed off to me. And I definitely don't know that I'd have made it into my tenuous middle-class position without my college degree to back me up, so I don't regret that either.
I still fondly recall the argument I had with a classmate during our junior or senior year, who was trying to claim that he was middle class because his family could only barely afford to keep up their second home ... in the HAMPTONS.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:27 AM on April 23, 2015 [14 favorites]
Well, aside from discussing the experiences of these students, I wonder if the new financial aid policies are doing anything in the way of changing the demographics of leadership across various fields? Though lots of students at top colleges are looking to simply not have to spend their lives working in a factory or mining job, aren't the universities, by implementing those financial aid policies, looking to diversity leadership? It has been about what, ten or fifteen years? I wonder where the kids who were on full scholarships are today, and if they attribute any of their success to the opportunities afforded them in college.
Is Going to an Elite College Worth the Cost? (NYT)
"In 1999, economists from Princeton and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation [...] compared students at more selective colleges to others of “seemingly comparable ability,” based on their SAT scores and class rank, who had attended less selective schools, either by choice or because a top college rejected them.
The earnings of graduates in the two groups were about the same — perhaps shifting the ledger in favor of the less expensive, less prestigious route. (The one exception was that children from “disadvantaged family backgrounds” appeared to earn more over time if they attended more selective colleges. The authors, Stacy Berg Dale and Alan B. Krueger, do not speculate why, but conclude, “These students appear to benefit most from attending a more elite college.”)"
This is more about race and not necessarily about wealth, but: Elite College Degrees Give Black Graduates Little Advantage (Inside Higher Ed)
posted by gemutlichkeit at 7:37 AM on April 23, 2015
Is Going to an Elite College Worth the Cost? (NYT)
"In 1999, economists from Princeton and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation [...] compared students at more selective colleges to others of “seemingly comparable ability,” based on their SAT scores and class rank, who had attended less selective schools, either by choice or because a top college rejected them.
The earnings of graduates in the two groups were about the same — perhaps shifting the ledger in favor of the less expensive, less prestigious route. (The one exception was that children from “disadvantaged family backgrounds” appeared to earn more over time if they attended more selective colleges. The authors, Stacy Berg Dale and Alan B. Krueger, do not speculate why, but conclude, “These students appear to benefit most from attending a more elite college.”)"
This is more about race and not necessarily about wealth, but: Elite College Degrees Give Black Graduates Little Advantage (Inside Higher Ed)
posted by gemutlichkeit at 7:37 AM on April 23, 2015
I've known a few people who could more-than-comfortably afford traveling anywhere, any time. Like, every Friday, off to somewhere, and non-zero odds it was on a private or rented plane.
It is hard to connect with someone who has lived all their life at that level, and for them to do the same with you, even if both of you are the most open-minded and generous spirits in the world, not only because your life experiences are different, but because every day is different.
"What'd you do this weekend?" truthful answer: "I flew to country X and did expensive thing Y" or easier answer: "hung out with friends, how about you?" Either answer is a barrier to connection.
posted by zippy at 10:18 AM on April 23, 2015
It is hard to connect with someone who has lived all their life at that level, and for them to do the same with you, even if both of you are the most open-minded and generous spirits in the world, not only because your life experiences are different, but because every day is different.
"What'd you do this weekend?" truthful answer: "I flew to country X and did expensive thing Y" or easier answer: "hung out with friends, how about you?" Either answer is a barrier to connection.
posted by zippy at 10:18 AM on April 23, 2015
No one even mentioned George Orwell's school memoir yet? Eh, whatever.
posted by shii at 10:22 AM on April 23, 2015
posted by shii at 10:22 AM on April 23, 2015
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posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 11:12 AM on April 23, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 11:12 AM on April 23, 2015 [3 favorites]
The most helpful thing my college did for me as a lower middle class student was they had a program where you could take an unpaid internship your junior year and get money for it (all other summers I worked two jobs). I found an unpaid internship that included housing otherwise even that may not have been possible (as it was at a nonprofit and they had volunteers), but it gave me the resume experience to get my foot in the door at jobs after graduation.
I do remember one professor would get annoyed as I always showed up at the end of her office hours (I had a work study right before that). But, I didn't really think to explain why.
posted by typecloud at 11:22 AM on April 23, 2015
I do remember one professor would get annoyed as I always showed up at the end of her office hours (I had a work study right before that). But, I didn't really think to explain why.
posted by typecloud at 11:22 AM on April 23, 2015
" Quiet guy, dressed in plaid flannels and jeans, you never would have guessed."
Well, anyone raised in WASPy private-banking world would guess. That's how Old Money works. The middle class kids were conspicuous because they weren't just striving in class, they were striving everywhere, all the time. Kids raised on Park Avenue and educated at elite NYC day schools had vastly different experiences than kids that went to St.Pauls, Groton, PEA or Andover. Kids from New Trier or big schools in Texas may have had lots of cash, but they didn't have the same social experiences as New England types.
Economic status is sometimes separate from social class--your parents could be rich hippies, well-traveled public school teachers or like my family--land rich, cash poor. I hadn't traveled anywhere, but I'd had a zillion summer jobs from flag-girl on a county road crew to tending bar--most of the kids in my house hadn't done anything without adult supervision. Sometimes, I think these colleges work too hard at making poorer kids self-conscious about their specialness.
posted by Ideefixe at 11:47 AM on April 23, 2015
Well, anyone raised in WASPy private-banking world would guess. That's how Old Money works. The middle class kids were conspicuous because they weren't just striving in class, they were striving everywhere, all the time. Kids raised on Park Avenue and educated at elite NYC day schools had vastly different experiences than kids that went to St.Pauls, Groton, PEA or Andover. Kids from New Trier or big schools in Texas may have had lots of cash, but they didn't have the same social experiences as New England types.
Economic status is sometimes separate from social class--your parents could be rich hippies, well-traveled public school teachers or like my family--land rich, cash poor. I hadn't traveled anywhere, but I'd had a zillion summer jobs from flag-girl on a county road crew to tending bar--most of the kids in my house hadn't done anything without adult supervision. Sometimes, I think these colleges work too hard at making poorer kids self-conscious about their specialness.
posted by Ideefixe at 11:47 AM on April 23, 2015
I depended on professors putting the course materials on reserve at the library because all my parents could afford was a monthly partial tuition payment, and my work-study job only covered food and incidentals. One semester a professor, in response to my question about why the books weren't on reserve, told me that if I "took the course seriously" that I would buy the books like everyone else.
I went to an Ivy school for grad school, and had a good scholarship that covered living expenses as well as tuition, but I was already so used to scrimping money on course books that I automatically got all of them through interlibrary loan for my seminars. (Which maybe wasn't a bad idea: I'm not in the field anymore, and I don't have an extra 60 or so academic books cluttering up my small house).
Going to an Ivy was a weird experience. The grad students have a more varied background (not just class, but also age, work experience) and are a lot more likely to be international students. I was an international myself, and most of the time I couldn't tell if some weirdness was the switch from a Canadian uni to an American, or from a massive state uni to a small private one (all the Ivies are tiny compared to Canadian universities). I was in class & culture shock all at once - and I put my foot in it (my mouth, metaphorical dog poop) more than once. It was a strange and sometimes almost hostile place to be, for all that I was on the inside. (As much as a grad student can be; we're not as smart as the undergrads, or so I was informed).
If it had been possible, I probably should've taken a year off away from where I grew up, then continued my schooling. But there's no 'gap year' for the poor!
I'm sorry you had the trouble you did, but lots of poor people do take gap years. I took one - I had no choice, as I needed to work to pay for my first year of tuition. So I spent a year working in a donut shop.
posted by jb at 10:25 PM on April 23, 2015
I went to an Ivy school for grad school, and had a good scholarship that covered living expenses as well as tuition, but I was already so used to scrimping money on course books that I automatically got all of them through interlibrary loan for my seminars. (Which maybe wasn't a bad idea: I'm not in the field anymore, and I don't have an extra 60 or so academic books cluttering up my small house).
Going to an Ivy was a weird experience. The grad students have a more varied background (not just class, but also age, work experience) and are a lot more likely to be international students. I was an international myself, and most of the time I couldn't tell if some weirdness was the switch from a Canadian uni to an American, or from a massive state uni to a small private one (all the Ivies are tiny compared to Canadian universities). I was in class & culture shock all at once - and I put my foot in it (my mouth, metaphorical dog poop) more than once. It was a strange and sometimes almost hostile place to be, for all that I was on the inside. (As much as a grad student can be; we're not as smart as the undergrads, or so I was informed).
If it had been possible, I probably should've taken a year off away from where I grew up, then continued my schooling. But there's no 'gap year' for the poor!
I'm sorry you had the trouble you did, but lots of poor people do take gap years. I took one - I had no choice, as I needed to work to pay for my first year of tuition. So I spent a year working in a donut shop.
posted by jb at 10:25 PM on April 23, 2015
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posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:58 PM on April 22, 2015 [7 favorites]